


Black Gives Way to Blue

by GoodGollyMissYollie (Yollie183)



Series: Ride The Lightning [3]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Language, M/M, Piercings, Shopping, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-27 03:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7602358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yollie183/pseuds/GoodGollyMissYollie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers works for a discreet private security company and gets assigned to James Barnes, a musician who takes the idea of 'sex, drugs & rock 'n roll' just a little too seriously.</p><p>*** THIS IS A COMPANION WORK TO <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/6756670/chapters/15441367">Goddamn Electric</a> ***</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black Gives Way to Blue

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So, I asked the wonderful people who are reading my fic [Goddamn Electric](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6756670/chapters/15441367) if they wanted scenes from Bucky's POV, and this is that!  
> Please go read that if you haven't yet, I fear this doesn't make too much sense out of context :(
> 
> Title is from the album of the same name by Alice in Chains. The lyrics at the beginning give a glimpse into Steve's thoughts and feelings, just like the lyrics in Goddamn Electric (which is from Steve's POV) are Bucky's. (I like symmetry, okay?)

_My name is no one_

_The long lost son_

_Born on the 4th of July_

_Raised in the era of heroes and cons_

_That left me for dead or alive_

_I am a nation_

_A worker of pride_

_My debt to the status quo_

_The scars on my hands_

_And the means to an end_

_Is all the that I have to show_

_I swallowed my pride_

_And I choked on my faith_

_I've given my heart and my soul_

_I've broken my fingers_

_And lied through my teeth_

_The pillar of damage control_

_I've been to the edge_

_And I've thrown the bouquet_

_Of flowers left over the grave_

_I sat in the waiting room_

_Wasting my time_

_And waiting for Judgement Day_

_I praise liberty_

_The "freedom to obey"_

_It's the song that strangles me_

_Well, don't cross the line_

_Oh, dream, America, dream_

_I can't even sleep_

_From the light's early dawn_

_Oh, scream, America, scream_

_Believe what you see_

_From heroes and cons_

_-  21 st Century Breakdown, Green Day _

 

~

 

Bucky glanced at his bodyguard when they left the penthouse that morning, glad of the guy’s pitiful fashion sense that offered a distraction from the events of the previous night.

“Are you serious?” he asked Rogers, motioning to his clothes. Tan slacks, really?

“Very,” Rogers responded glibly.

“You’re no fun,” Bucky informed him.

 

The bodyguard seemed a little wary that they might be going to score when Bucky led him out of the hotel, and he sagged in relief when Wade joined them for sightseeing. It was cute, Bucky supposed. Rogers was the quintessential boy-next-door. The good guy. But he’d held up alright in the dealer’s apartment, and Bucky had to admire that a little. Not many people looked at him the same after days like that. And then there was the strange dream Bucky had had, where Rogers had helped him after getting back from Pierce’s room.

Bucky’s hand was bruised, the knuckles scraped raw, and he supposed he’d punched a wall again, though he hardly remembered getting back to the penthouse. The wonders of a cocktail of heroin, Valium and good ol’ Jack. But the dream stayed with him, where Rogers had cleaned the abrasions on his hand, and he’d explained how the little scars on his fingers were from playing guitar.

He’d dreamed of his other scars, too. Sometimes he wished he could flay off his own skin, but instead he spent hours under the needle, covering them in ink that might’ve been art or might’ve been nothing more than the Rorschach blots of his psyche, who knows.

 

“Hey, Bucky.” Wade’s voice pulled Bucky out of his own head.

“Yes, Wade?” the drummer seemed a little too excited, and it made Bucky wary.

“I won our bet!”

It took Bucky half a moment to remember what Wade was talking about. “No, you didn’t.” But Bucky couldn’t be sure. He lost time sometimes, when Pierce was around.

“Yes, I did! Last night made two weeks!”

Bucky tried to recall why he’d made the stupid bet in the first place. But he supposed getting a piercing wasn’t the worst thing he’d done for someone else.

“Okay, fine,” Bucky agreed reluctantly, then registered the bodyguard's confused stare. “I bet Wade he couldn’t go two weeks without doing something nasty to a unicorn.”

“A unicorn?” Rogers’ eyebrows pulled together.

“He has a fetish,” Bucky told him nonchalantly. There were people with worse fetishes in the world.

Wade defended himself to Rogers, who looked a little out of his depth. Bucky had to laugh at his diplomacy, and clapped him on the shoulder before realising what he’d done. _Don’t touch, Jimmy._

“So, Bucky,” Wade began, and Bucky suddenly felt a little sick.

“Nothing below the waist, Wade.”

“But you’d look so hot with a Jacob’s Ladder!”

Bucky lifted a shoulder. “Still, above the waist only.”

“But Bucky! A Jacob’s Ladder!”

“A Jacob’s Ladder?” Rogers cut in, looking apprehensive.

“Our Mr Rogers is an innocent, it seems,” Wade uttered as Bucky pulled up a picture on Google.

“It’s a piercing,” he told Rogers, wondering if it would make him blush. He wasn’t disappointed.

“Oh. I knew I shouldn’t have asked.” Rogers’ face was a brilliant shade of red, all the way to the tips of his ears.

“Come on,” Bucky laughed again, walking down the sidewalk.

 

They made it to a tattoo parlour, taking a bus. Wade requested a nipple ring, which wasn’t so bad in Bucky’s opinion. He’d had one before, but he put in a little fight, just for the sake of it.

“No, Wade, come on! Those hurt like a bitch!” he complained, but hardly hesitated to sign his consent.

The piercer introduced himself, but Bucky scarcely bothered to listen to his name. He might’ve been cute if he hadn’t tried flirting with the bodyguard, who seemed… flattered? Should a straight guy react like that? Bucky was just about to broach the question, but Wade beat him to it.

“Steve? Which side of the rainbow are you on, exactly?”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“He’s asking if you think all non-heterosexual people are vile sinners,” Bucky explained.

“Oh,” Rogers shrugged. “I’m gay, so, no.”

Bucky was in the process of tugging off his shirt, and didn’t hear exactly what Wade exclaimed, but it seemed positive enough.

So the wholesome Steve Rogers was gay. Bucky was hardly ever wrong about people. It troubled him that Rogers had eluded his people-sense in this tiny way.

Bucky sat down of the padded chair and let the piercer push a needle through his flesh. It hurt a lot less than he remembered, but he still gave a little groan when the kid tugged at the sensitive bud in just the wrong way.

Bucky held his shirt away from his chest as they left the tattoo parlour, and regretted not bringing shades as he noticed a kid across the street look at him with interest.

“Do I have something in my teeth, Wade?” the bodyguard’s voice pulled Bucky’s attention back.

“No, but… as much that colour brings out the blue of your eyes…”

Hmm, Bucky glanced at Rogers and realized Wade had a point there.

“If you’re gonna work for Bucky,” Wade continued, “you need a wardrobe change.”

“I really don’t,” the bodyguard said with an exhale.

“You really do. Pretty please let us give you a makeover.”

“Why?!”

“Because firstly, this is a rock star AU, and secondly everyone is staring at us because we look like two Satan-worshippers who are kidnapping a wholesome virgin to sacrifice,” Wade stated.

“If you were Satanists, you’d be out of luck, I’m not a virgin.”

Bucky was almost surprised at that. Rogers seemed so pure, it was hard to think of him like _that_.

“Nevertheless, you are getting a makeover,” Wade declared.

“Just go with it, pal,” Bucky finally interjected. “He’ll never stop.” _And you looked hot in my clothes yesterday,_ he thought, but didn’t say out loud.

“Let’s go!” Wade was already a hundred yards ahead.

“C’mon,” Bucky gently nudged the bodyguard ( _don’t touch, Jimmy_ ) and they walked down the sidewalk to catch up to Wade, who’d entered a store and was already pulling shirts off shelves.

Bucky stayed close to Rogers, running his fingertips along a shelf of Siberia shirts.

The bodyguard looked at a bundle of fabric that Wade had thrown at him. “Wade, this is two sizes to small!” he yelled in exasperation.

“It’s to show off your muscles, duh!” Wade called back. Which was totally unnecessary, Bucky reckoned, Rogers’ physique would be hard to miss even in a garbage bag.

“Oh, no. No,” Rogers stood his ground, “if you’re gonna make me wear this, it has to fit properly.”

“Fine,” Wade said sulkily, replacing the Darth Vader shirt with a Stormtrooper one, before going to ransack a Pokémon display.

“What band is this?” Rogers asked Bucky.

“Very funny, Rogers.”

But the bodyguard was frowning at the shirt, his face puzzled.

“What?”

Bucky frowned too. This couldn’t be. “You’re serious?”

“Yeah.” Rogers looked like a puppy, not understanding how to play with a toy it had gotten.

“It’s a Stormtrooper,” Bucky said.

“A what?”

This couldn’t be real. “Oh God, please don’t tell me you’ve never seen Star Wars.”

Rogers’ cheeks went red again. “I haven’t. My roommate keeps telling me to, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

Bucky was incredulous, shaking his head a little. Even he’d seen Star Wars as a kid, had loved the movies, especially with all the shit going on around him.

“Wade’s going to kill you. He loves Star Wars.”

“I’m sorry,” the bodyguard muttered.

Bucky couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his lips. “Just take the shirt and don’t say anything compromising. We’ll watch it on the bus tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” Rogers said, with a wide-eyed look of surprised gratitude. Bucky shrugged it off and joined Wade in picking out clothes. He took a red Gryffindor shirt, and made a mental note to have Rogers do the Pottermore quiz sometime. He dissuaded Wade from a hot pink shirt with a picture of Princess Celestia from My Little Pony, but agreed that the bodyguard wearing a skin tight Black Sabbath shirt was really in everyone’s best interest.

It was fun, Bucky thought. He could hardly remember the last time he’d had any sort of fun, much less while completely sober. The day passed almost too quickly, and evening found him watching Rogers try to fit his new clothes into his suitcase. It wasn’t going well, and Bucky gave an amused grin.

“What did they teach you in the army, Stevie?” he asked, then realized what he’d said. _Stevie_. It had sounded familiar on his tongue, comfortable. Had he called the bodyguard that before? Rogers didn’t seem too surprised at it. Had he lost time again, and not noticed? He continued speaking automatically to hide his jumble of messy thoughts. “Because you need to ask for a refund.”

Rogers (Stevie, _Steve_ ) laughed and the sound mercifully pulled Bucky out of his head. He tucked all the clothes into the suitcase, aware of the bodyguard watching him. It made him feel itchy suddenly, aware of the layer of sweat covering his skin from their walking around to do sightseeing.

“I’m gonna take a shower,” Bucky told the bodyguard ( _Stevie_ ).

The other man nodded and Bucky made his way to the bathroom. He locked the door out of habit, pulled off his clothes and got into the shower, avoiding his reflection in the full-length mirror affixed to the opposite wall.

He turned on the spray and stood still for a moment before the song running through his head made its way past his lips.

 

_“Come one and all and see the broken man, talking to himself_

_He sits and waits for something better, he'll never find it here_

_The people touch his hair and pinch his cheek; he can't even feel it_

_There it goes again; he's listening to someone_

_He hears the bitter laughter_

_And all he wants to know is_

_Why_

_Does any of it matter?_

_I can't take it anymore_

_You've gotta try_

_The inhale that makes the exhale so much better_

_He wipes his hands on anything in reach, he never feels clean_

_He shakes at night because his nerve is gone, every muscle hurts_

_Come one and all and see what happened_

_That broken man is me_

_There it goes again, I can hear it louder_

_It doesn't feel good anymore_

_All I want to know is...”_

As he sang, Bucky lathered soap on a sponge, and scrubbed himself until his skin felt raw.

**Author's Note:**

> The song Bucky sings is [Inhale](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NHz3Koj7o0) by Stone Sour. Give it a listen, it's an awesome song!
> 
> Thanks so much for reading!!! Remember to subscribe to the SERIES, not this work, to be notified of updates, since I post each new one separately.


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